netary novels.

Anyone wishing to correspond with me will be welcome, as I
love to write letters, and especially to anyone interested
in the same things that I am.--(Miss) Bernice Goldberg, 147
Crescent Drive, Mason City, Iowa.

_Kidding the Editor_

Dear Editor:

I have just finished your January, 1932, issue of Astounding
Stories. It was superb.

Imagine my delight and surprise when I purchased the first
issue this year! Smooth edges! Good quality of paper! I had
a few other articles to purchase but I forgot all about
them when I saw your magazine and rushed home to read it.

It had a most admirable cover design by your best artist, H.
W. Wesso. I turned to the Contents Page. The first story was
by my favorite author, Ray Cummings, and called "The Space
Car to Mars." Hot dog! My favorite theme, interplanetary
travel.

All the rest of the Authors were my favorites too! Edmond
Hamilton, Capt. S. P. Meek, S. P. Wright, A. J. Burks and a
short story by Jack Williamson.

I turned to the next page and lo and behold, what do I see
but an editorial. Wonders after wonders! It was called "The
Possibilities of Space Travel." I was by this time beginning
to think that at last the Editor had achieved a perfect
magazine, and when I turned to the first story, the one by
Ray Cummings, I knew it. There was a double-page
illustration by Wesso in soft and realistic _colors_! Think
of it! _Colored_ illustrations for each story!

Well, I was so excited that I could hardly read, but at last
I began. Boy, can Ray Cummings write interplanetary stories!
Y como! (And how!) He wove scientific explanations into the
story so very skillfully that one learned the scientific
facts without knowing it. When he thought that the
explanation of some invention would be boresome, he put a
little note at the foot of the page. This, I remembered, was
an admirable feature in his story "Brigands of the Moon,"
which you published two years ago.

I then turned to "The Readers' Corner" only to discover that
its name had been changed to "The Observatory." (I expect
this name was taken from the suggestion of P. Leadbeater in
the March, 1931, issue.) I discovered also, to my delight,
that at the end of each letter the Editor made a few
commen